Fundamentally there is no chemical on Earth we could ever truly run out of, we could always endothermically synthesize anything in the worst case scenario.
Problem is that is insanely expensive. The more expensive resources are, the lower their utility to the market. We use helium and oil now to enable a lot of essential and hard to replace technologies, but if the price starts spiraling out of control due to diminishing availability (and it has / will in both cases) the increasing price limits your ability to use the resource for useful purposes.
Its not really about conservationism at all. Its long term strategic economic thinking. Doing stuff with non-renewable resources that is barely useful (fuel inefficient cars or party balloons) means when we want to do more useful things with these resources later, diminished availability might make it much more expensive later on.
I imagine to most people having plastics, MRI machines, and modern agriculture is more important than having to recharge an electric car or put an alternative heavier gas in their party balloons. If the price of these resources starts spiraling as the cheap supply runs out, the costs of the former skyrocket, and we do not have easy alternatives for them yet like we do a lot of modern oil and helium habits.
Problem is that is insanely expensive. The more expensive resources are, the lower their utility to the market. We use helium and oil now to enable a lot of essential and hard to replace technologies, but if the price starts spiraling out of control due to diminishing availability (and it has / will in both cases) the increasing price limits your ability to use the resource for useful purposes.
Its not really about conservationism at all. Its long term strategic economic thinking. Doing stuff with non-renewable resources that is barely useful (fuel inefficient cars or party balloons) means when we want to do more useful things with these resources later, diminished availability might make it much more expensive later on.
I imagine to most people having plastics, MRI machines, and modern agriculture is more important than having to recharge an electric car or put an alternative heavier gas in their party balloons. If the price of these resources starts spiraling as the cheap supply runs out, the costs of the former skyrocket, and we do not have easy alternatives for them yet like we do a lot of modern oil and helium habits.